![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
An update.
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2014 11:38 amIt’s a while since I’ve been here for an update, so I’ll try to get everything in but I’ll try to keep it brief, too.
A couple of weeks back I went up to Shropshire to see the folks and visit Mum, who is now in a nursing home near Bridgnorth. The home is a good one, but we would prefer something closer to Shrewsbury.
There are two main reasons: neither my sister nor my niece are particularly roiling in money, so somewhere that didn’t take most of a tank of petrol to get to and from each week would be preferable. As it is, they take it in turns to visit Mum, but that of course, means that she only gets one visit a week and only sees each person once every two weeks. Not that she’d remember, you understand, but that’s not quite the point.
The second reason is that geographically, the nearest hospital to Bridgnorth is actually Wolverhampton, rather than Shrewsbury or Telford and should Mum need medical assistance, it is to Wolverhampton she would be sent as long as she is resident in Bridgnorth. I have mixed feelings over this. Firstly, it would make visits even more problematic, but at the same time, we have no reason to believe that Wolverhampton hospital is staffed by the same type of incompetent as those administered by Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust. I would imagine we would encounter an entirely different style of incompetence.
Be that as it may, for the moment at least, Mum doesn’t seem to need to visit or otherwise spend time in a hospital; she looks better physically than I have seen her for some time, albeit more frail than ever and pretty much wheelchair bound except for very short distances (measured in paces). At least she is not covered in bruises and no longer looks like she’s done a full twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. Sadly, I’m not convinced there’s much left there mentally. She is always tired and sleepy and when she’s awake, the lights are on, but with a noticeable dimmer switch.
During her last stay in hospital, they contrived to lose her glasses, dentures, some of her clothes and about half the photos we’d left with her to look at, including a couple of sole copies of pictures of her grand children. Insofar as we can, we have replaced everything (except those pictures, obviously) and I took additional prints of some that had gone missing and others that we hoped would jog her memory. She no longer recognises pictures of my sister as a teenager, herself in her fifties through to her seventies, or of Dad when he was aged about 65 and wearing his Red Cross uniform. She did recognise him (and smiled when she saw the photo) from the last picture taken of him, a few months before he died. The other picture she recognised was a very poor scan of a photocopy of her mother, who died in 1950.
Conversation is largely impossible now. We speak to her, of course, but she just gives a polite little laugh, which we realised months ago is her way of disguising the fact that she has no idea what she’s just been told. Then she will ask where she is. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.
We took her great grandchildren along to see her. They are aged just under 8 and just under 3. Courtney, the eldest was happy to see her “GG” again and they enjoyed a cuddle or two, but Masen doesn’t really remember her and won’t go to her, although she would like to give him a hug, too.
At some level I think she knows she’s never going home, but we lie to her and tell her she’s there until her legs get stronger, which of course, they won’t, but she forgets that, too. Leaving is probably the hardest part as she gets upset and that has a knock-on effect on us. Luckily, the staff are very good with her and she is very good with them, when we’re not there.
In other news, I am back from the annual GASPs weekend held for the second year in succession in Sheringham, Norfolk. I could bore you with lists of games played and movies watched, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that a good time was had and if you wish to get a flavour, I refer you back to earlier years’ write ups (I assume there are some, I’ve not always ben this reticent in writing). This one was much the same, except we are all a bit greyer and fatter.
A couple of weeks back I went up to Shropshire to see the folks and visit Mum, who is now in a nursing home near Bridgnorth. The home is a good one, but we would prefer something closer to Shrewsbury.
There are two main reasons: neither my sister nor my niece are particularly roiling in money, so somewhere that didn’t take most of a tank of petrol to get to and from each week would be preferable. As it is, they take it in turns to visit Mum, but that of course, means that she only gets one visit a week and only sees each person once every two weeks. Not that she’d remember, you understand, but that’s not quite the point.
The second reason is that geographically, the nearest hospital to Bridgnorth is actually Wolverhampton, rather than Shrewsbury or Telford and should Mum need medical assistance, it is to Wolverhampton she would be sent as long as she is resident in Bridgnorth. I have mixed feelings over this. Firstly, it would make visits even more problematic, but at the same time, we have no reason to believe that Wolverhampton hospital is staffed by the same type of incompetent as those administered by Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust. I would imagine we would encounter an entirely different style of incompetence.
Be that as it may, for the moment at least, Mum doesn’t seem to need to visit or otherwise spend time in a hospital; she looks better physically than I have seen her for some time, albeit more frail than ever and pretty much wheelchair bound except for very short distances (measured in paces). At least she is not covered in bruises and no longer looks like she’s done a full twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. Sadly, I’m not convinced there’s much left there mentally. She is always tired and sleepy and when she’s awake, the lights are on, but with a noticeable dimmer switch.
During her last stay in hospital, they contrived to lose her glasses, dentures, some of her clothes and about half the photos we’d left with her to look at, including a couple of sole copies of pictures of her grand children. Insofar as we can, we have replaced everything (except those pictures, obviously) and I took additional prints of some that had gone missing and others that we hoped would jog her memory. She no longer recognises pictures of my sister as a teenager, herself in her fifties through to her seventies, or of Dad when he was aged about 65 and wearing his Red Cross uniform. She did recognise him (and smiled when she saw the photo) from the last picture taken of him, a few months before he died. The other picture she recognised was a very poor scan of a photocopy of her mother, who died in 1950.
Conversation is largely impossible now. We speak to her, of course, but she just gives a polite little laugh, which we realised months ago is her way of disguising the fact that she has no idea what she’s just been told. Then she will ask where she is. Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.
We took her great grandchildren along to see her. They are aged just under 8 and just under 3. Courtney, the eldest was happy to see her “GG” again and they enjoyed a cuddle or two, but Masen doesn’t really remember her and won’t go to her, although she would like to give him a hug, too.
At some level I think she knows she’s never going home, but we lie to her and tell her she’s there until her legs get stronger, which of course, they won’t, but she forgets that, too. Leaving is probably the hardest part as she gets upset and that has a knock-on effect on us. Luckily, the staff are very good with her and she is very good with them, when we’re not there.
In other news, I am back from the annual GASPs weekend held for the second year in succession in Sheringham, Norfolk. I could bore you with lists of games played and movies watched, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that a good time was had and if you wish to get a flavour, I refer you back to earlier years’ write ups (I assume there are some, I’ve not always ben this reticent in writing). This one was much the same, except we are all a bit greyer and fatter.